Music of the Spheres is an eight-track, 48-minute long symphonic score was created by composing partners Marty O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori, and featured the vocals of former Beatle Paul McCartney. It was envisioned as a musical companion to Bungie’s anticipated release of Destiny, but was ultimately shelved due to a disagreement between Bungie and O’Donnell. The argument was over publisher Activision’s failure to use O’Donnell’s music in Destiny‘s E3 2013 trailer. In April 2014, Bungie fired O’Donnell and shelved Music of the Spheres indefinitely despite the composer publically giving Bungie his blessing.
On Monday, December 25, Tlohtzin Espinosa and Owen Spence released the album to the internet. After working on a fan re-creation for more than a year, the two told Kotaku that they had been contacted by someone with an original copy of Music of the Spheres and wanted it to be made public. The Destiny album leaked along with a lengthy Reddit post, pointing out the potential legal issues surrounding it.
“I do not intend to piss off Bungie and I apologize if this is morally wrong,” Spence wrote. “I just want you guys to hear what was intended by the composers of Destiny. We worked hard for this and the community deserves to hear it in my honest and sincere opinion. I don’t intend for this to spread against the best wishes of Bungie.”
The leaked album has since been confirmed as legitimate by former Bungie Creative Director Joe Staten and O’Donnell himself.
“I’m quite relieved and happy, ” O’Donnell said in a statement to Kotaku. “This was the way it was supposed to have been heard five years ago.”
For those who are worried about legal gray areas, the standard original Destiny soundtrack is available on Spotify. Bungie has also released the entire soundtrack for its sequel, Destiny 2, on YouTube.
